Noel Grealish (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

At the outset, I pay tribute to a man from my own county of Galway, Finian McGrath, former Minister of State with responsibility for disability issues. He has spent a lifetime championing the cause of people with disabilities. He was a driving force behind this House ratifying the UNCRPD in 2018. That convention states that people with disabilities have the same rights as everyone else. It also states that countries signing up to it have an onus to provide equal access to transportation. Unfortunately, despite the ratification, people with disabilities are still fighting for these rights in many areas, including access to transport.

The 2016 census recorded more than 640,000 people with a disability in Ireland. That is more than one in eight of our population. More than one third of them are under the age of 45 and two thirds are under the age of 65. They are entitled to live full and active lives within our communities. Without access to personal transport, thousands of Irish citizens cannot do what the rest of us take for granted, such as going to work, visiting family and friends, going shopping, going to the cinema or to church, or even to the pub for a pint. A 2021 report by the Ombudsman highlighted the social isolation suffered by people with disabilities and pointed to the fact that Ireland has one of the lowest rates of employment in the world among people with disabilities as a result of being unable to access transport.

It is now ten years since the then Government scrapped the two grants that enabled people with a severe disability who cannot walk to hire transport or get specially adapted cars. These schemes made an enormous difference to the thousands of people throughout the country who cannot physically drive a car themselves and could not access public transport. In fairness, the closing of the mobility allowance and motorised transport grant scheme to new applicants was a fallout from a legal challenge. However, successive Governments have since promised to bring in a replacement scheme to subsidise the cost of transport, such as taxis, for those unable to access public transport. After 2013, a new Bill was included in every Government legislative programme for many years. This proposed health (transport support) Bill even got elevated to the status of priority legislation at one stage but was simply dropped and has not been seen since. As a result, many thousands of people are prisoners in their own homes, and are condemned to look at the four walls around them every day with little prospect of their situation improving if they cannot get out and about. For many of them, it is a catch-22 situation. They cannot get out of their homes without incurring the considerable expense of hiring a taxi, which is all the greater if they live in a rural area. However, because they are also not in a position to earn a wage, it is money they simply do not have to spend. In many cases, they do not have family members or friends to call on to bring them where they want to go. They are stripped of their independence and their quality of life is seriously reduced as a result. We simply cannot allow this situation to continue in our country in this day and age. These are the most vulnerable people in our society and we are letting them down.

The current coalition's programme for Government undertook to empower those with a disability and give them the ability to choose the supports that meet most of their needs.

Fine words, but we need to see clear action, such as reintroducing a scheme that would make a real difference by helping people get out of their homes and play a part in the communities where they live.

To paraphrase the Ombudsman’s report that I mentioned earlier, living with a disability in Ireland in 2023 should never mean that a person is grounded in their home, is unable to participate equally and to actively in their community and in work.

I thank my colleagues in the Regional Group for bringing this motion forward and also Cait Nic Amhlaoibh, our party administrator, for the excellent work she did in putting this motion together.

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